1st time trailer owner, question regarding battery/power

Thank you for the suggestion. I have a new optima blue gel battery in it, and everything works.
But, if there is no battery in it, would the lights etc work? Or does it need the battery regardless?

My 2 cents: disconnect the old dead battery (forget trying to resurrect it, it may be boiled dry, just go get a fresh new RV (preferable) or marine wet cell battery). with Batt disconnected, get into your electrical panel, and check all the fuses. (Mine had three blown fuses on the dealer's lot!) If in doubt, replace the fuse. And keep spares around!
Plug in the 120v power and start checking stuff. Keep it plugged in to keep the new battery charged fully.

Sorry all. Just put in a new battery. Lights all work. So even though you can plug into 120 volt, you still need a battery for everything to work?
I went with an optima blue top battery. I was told it would be overkill, but I don't want to take chances.

The 12 Volt Side of Life

Otherwise if it is just a 120v issue... turn all breakers off firmly and firmly back on. Do the outlets work?

Lots of stuff runs on 12v which can be powered by the converter or the battery. Check the 12v fuses especially the pair of main fuses.

Are you sure you have the battery in correct? Black is often B+ and white is B-.

Do you have battery disconnect switch? This would disconnect all 12 Volt

Get a lamp from the house. You can check all of the 120v AC receptacles with that. This part of you power is controlled with circuit breaker just like in your house. You need to be plugged in for this side to work.

You will have a converter that gets power from the 120v AC side and converts it to 12v DC. This side uses fuse's like in your car for control. It also charges your battery. The battery may have a cut off switch to prevent draining power when in storage. This is what I would look for before buying a battery.

If your fridge is one of the automatic types it will run on 120v AC (house type) when plugged in. With out being plugged in it will need the propane turned on and the 12v DC battery charged for the control circuits.

The water heater will run on propane and maybe 120v AC if so equipped. The red switch probably has a indicator light but the propane has to be turned on. You will hear it light, it roars like a jet engine. I won't hurt to turn it on for a few moments to verify that it works. It also needs 12v DC from the battery or the converter to ignite.

The furnace uses propane for the heat and 12v DC for the fan. One battery on a cold night may not make it through a night with out being plugged in.

You need to get a cheap volt/ohm meter to be able to check battery voltages. The indicator lights in your bathroom are notorious for not being accurate.

walk down your street find a person with a rv to show you how things work. have fun with your rv.

Suggest you visit the website, The 12volt Side of Life, and do some reading.
It will help you understand how your two electrical systems work.

Several possibilities:

1. Blown fuse, in positive battery lead.

2. Bad or missing ground, between battery and trailer.

3. Main fuse blown on fuse panel

4. Bad autoreset breaker. Not all campers have one. Some campers have more than one. They look like this.

5. Bad, missing, loose wiring connections.

6. Internal short in the battery. Shorted battery will not take or hold a charge. While plugged in to shore power, your converter is trying to charge the battery, but, the battery is acting like a huge resistor, drawing every bit of power that the converter can supply, and still not charging. There's nothing left to power the lights or other 12 volt systems. Unplug shore power, disconnect the battery and leave it that way, re-connect shore power, and see if your lights work. If this is the problem, a new battery will fix it. If this is not the problem, the hunt is on for blown fuses / breakers, and bad wiring connections.

I would suspect the battery.

euphoria18_79 wrote:
Sorry just at work at the moment.
The battery is still connected. For a brief moment, when i went to the bathroom which has the battery/water guages, it lit for a matter of a second.
There is no AC in the unit.
Plugged in, the only thing that works is the microwave. Fridge does not (havent tried using gas on it), no lights, no stereo, no fan. I turned on the red switch by the sink, i assume thats for the hot water tank?? and it did nothing as well.

When you say "the fridge doesn't work".....are you referring to the light in the fridge or the cooling part of the fridge? Have you left it plugged in long enough to determine that it's not actually cooling? The light in my fridge works off the 12v system so again if the battery is dead and converter is not working/blown fuse then the light wouldn't work in the fridge. The stereo also didn't work in my camper when I got it and it had an inline glass fuse on the hot wire running to the radio which was also blown. I first thought that I had a similar problem as you, but it turned out that I just had a random assortment of fuses blown that led me to believe it was a major problem. I think I swapped three fuses and everything worked as it should. From my personnel experience....I'd say check all fuses first and if that doesn't solve the problem then more detailed analysis may be necessary.